Why Selling on Amazon.com Can Outsell Your Ebay Business

If you sell on eBay, you probably already know that it has taken a beating from the press and its huge body of online sellers. eBay’s changes in their selling policies and fees has made many sellers eager to explore other online marketplaces to sell their products.

Amazon.com, however, is rapidly gaining a reputation as an attractive platform for online sellers because it is increasingly gaining market share not only in its traditional marketplaces of books, DVDs, and CDs, but also electronics, toys, and jewelry, among dozens of other product categories.

Thankfully, Amazon allows individuals, or ‘merchants’, to post their own inventory (of specific product categories) for sale on Amazon’s web site. So eBay sellers would be savvy to check out Amazon as an additional selling channel. Of note, here are some differences between selling on eBay and selling on Amazon.

eBay charges a listing fee, where it is free for an approved merchant to post an item on Amazon. However, eBay’s total commission and charges after your item sells is roughly the equivalent of Amazon’s commission.

Listing an item for sale on eBay can be cumbersome, requiring you to take pictures of an item and thoroughly describing it. Listing an item for sale on Amazon can be done with just a few keystrokes – the item picture(s) and description are already set by Amazon. As an Amazon merchant, you are just indicating to Amazon’s visitors that you are selling a particular item. When an Amazon customer views an item on Amazon, he/she will be able to see that you are a merchant who is also selling the item.

eBay charges its sellers a listing fee regardless of whether or not the item sells. Amazon.com does not charge any fees or commissions until after the item sells. Online sellers pay Amazon.com roughly the same percentage commission that they would pay eBay and Paypal, combined.

eBay lets you sell one-of-a-kind items. However, Amazon restricts the product categories that an individual merchant can sell in. Also, an Amazon individual merchant cannot create an item on Amazon to sell it. Essentially, the merchant’s items must already exist in the Amazon database of products.

eBay can attract buyers for your product who are looking for the lowest possible price. But Amazon shoppers tend to be a little more ‘upscale’, so Amazon merchants can often command a higher price point for their products.

eBay is still a terrific online venue, but generating an even more solid revenue stream by selling on Amazon.com is possible for you.